The Grip of Life
by Mia-Zeklos
Summary: As Jack travels around the world in the months after Ianto's death, he sends texts to his old phone number. One morning, he receives a response.


**Author's Notes: This was requested from me on Tumblr and it's yet another fix it, so I hope you like it. It's a bit depressing at the beginning, but it ends well this time, so let me know what you think!**

He would have loved this, Jack thought as he stared out of the window of his room. All of it – the glamour, the colours, the people, everything. He would have cherished the pulse of life that seemed to be almost visible in New York. Ianto had always tended to get high on the thrill of life itself.

Jack had travelled to many different places with his team, and he knew that Ianto loved everything new. Denmark, Switzerland, India... They'd had their fair share of cases in Ireland and Scotland as well, and Ianto's eyes had always lit up with curiosity at the prospect of something that he'd never seen before. He could still imagine him getting out of the plane in New York – how wide his eyes would get and how he'd start beaming with that adorable little smile he always got when he was fascinated by something and had no trouble admitting it.

Jack took in a shuddering breath and pulled out his phone.

_Currently in NYC. You would have liked it here_. His fingers paused over the keys. _Lots of pretty boys and pretty girls. Nothing like you, though. No one draws my eye. It's pathetic._

He pressed the send button and lay back on the bed with a sigh. It was the truth. He'd told himself to do something and end the fest of self-pity his life had turned into but it had only got worse because he'd picked up a guy who'd been a rather poor copy of Ianto and had lose interest the moment the accent hadn't lived up to his irrational expectations.

Five months had passed. It was unhealthy and he knew it, but he couldn't help it, as much as he couldn't control the urge to text Ianto's phone in every new city as he went around the world. It really didn't help that he kept getting–

Ah, yes. His phone buzzed in his hand. _The number you have reached is incorrect or currently unavailable. Please try again later._

Jack gave a small, rueful laugh. Of course not. Not that he'd been expecting anything else; it was just an instinctive hope for something to be different.

His room was tiny and the only decoration was a painting on the opposite wall – a vase with several roses in it. It only made everything feel lonelier and he felt smaller than he had ever been and everything seemed too cold and too detached and he just couldn't take it anymore. He'd put a 'Do not disturb' sign on the door and was hopeful enough to believe that no one from the hotel staff would dare bother him, so he just curled around himself on the bed and tried to fall asleep.

It seemed emptier with each passing night.

**o.O.o**

The sun was what woke him up; coming through the large windows of his room and piercing through his closed eyes. The streets outside were already buzzing with life and it should have been tempting, but he couldn't find it in himself to stand up.

It had been happening ever since Ianto's death. Jack found himself unable to deal with even the simplest of things like getting himself out of bed and dragging himself outside and whenever he did it it always failed to work. It was as if something was draining all of his energy and he was just pointlessly wandering from city to city and country to country without actually seeing any of it.

_Another day. Still nothing interesting. I'm not sure I even feel like trying today._

It had begun to be something of a diary for him, those texts, and he refused to stop it despite the numerous service messages he got in return.

And there it was; his phone vibrating. Not sure why he was still bothering to read them, Jack picked it up.

And stared.

_Look outside._

His grip on the phone tightening, Jack neared the window.

Nothing different from what he'd been seeing in the last few days. Just the busy streets, the white noise from the city and the slight hint of a smell from the fishmongers downstairs.

Who is this? He asked in alarm, fingers flying over the buttons, and the response came immediately, still unclear enough to drive him to frustration.

_Come closer._

He stared down at the pavement on his side of the street and froze. There was a blue square – a roof of something, on a second look – topped with a light, just beneath his window. He'd expected excitement; something to make him feel alive from it, but was severely disappointed to not find it like that. Instead, some kind of devastated resentment had taken over and he was almost angry at himself for it. There had been something; a hope, perhaps, that if the Doctor was to come, he'd feel better. It would make him live again; force him into the life he'd refused to continue. He felt infinitely pitiable as he stumbled down the stairs, squinting against the sun, and knocked on the door of the phone box parked outside.

The man who opened it was one he'd never seen before – tall with light brown hair and wide green eyes. It quickly came to mind that he had to be the Doctor, though, and Jack found it in himself to smile. It died a quick dead when the man pulled out a bulky black phone – one that Ianto had always said he'd throw away in favour of a new one and never actually had.

"Well, come on, then," the Doctor said with a smile wide enough to irritate Jack even further. "Come in! Don't you want to know?"

"Not particularly." Now that he was here, Jack couldn't even find it in himself to be angry. He was just empty. "You've got his phone. How?"

"He gave it to me." The Doctor was carefully watching for his reaction, still oddly animated about it all, and Jack gave him a look of pure disdain. "You know, so I could call you."

"You went back in time to talk to him? God, this is just getting better." Jack laughed humourlessly. He knew he wasn't supposed to feel all that betrayed given his past experiences with the Time Lord, but it was still just as painful. "Bit late, aren't you? You could have been there when I needed you instead of coming here now, larger than life. You can't fix anything." He knew that he sounded bitter, but couldn't find it in himself to give a damn. The Doctor must have known that he'd be like this if he'd came here. And how had he taken Ianto's phone, anyway? Last Jack remembered, he'd spoken to his sister just before they'd entered Thames House, so how come?

"Ah, but, you see," the Doctor joined his hands in front of himself, thorn between wanting to deliver possibly good news or not say anything at all because it could be too shocking. "I lost someone recently too. Well, two someones, actually. People I loved. And then I remembered – I remembered that I wasn't there when I should have been. And decided that even if I had to be alone sometimes, I can help someone else not be alone." When he saw Jack's mystified expression, he sighed. "What I'm trying to say here is– I already fixed it."

"What have you–"

"Doctor, I can't find the library." The voice that floated to him from underneath the console – new, as he noticed just now, blue and dark – made them both stop where they were. "Clara says that it's right next to her room, but it's not – I checked – so the TARDIS must have moved it somewhere. And you always say that this ship likes me."

As Jack watched Ianto climb up the stairs, his mind felt as if it'd been switched off. He looked like he always had, even though the suit was one he'd never seen before and the waistcoat was not as modernised as the ones Ianto had worn to work. He had bitten a pen like a cigarette and he was carrying a pile of old, battered books that seemed on the verge of falling from his grip.

The Doctor cleared his throat in the silence that reigned around them. "It's two doors to the left," he said quietly. "From her room, that is. If you go from yours, it's going to be down the left corridor, two turns to the right and the first door to the left."

Ianto left the books on the floor with great care – _typical_, a part of Jack's mind that was still functioning pointed out – and approached him, hesitation visible in every step he made. The Captain had no such restrictions and hurried to him, reaching up to touch his face and mapping it with his fingers almost frantically. "What have you done?" he mumbled to the Doctor without turning to look at him. Ianto was frozen under his touch, as if he was unsure how to feel about it. "Did you take him out of time? Is this a copy? How did you–"

"I took him out of the morgue." The Doctor's voice was still quiet. "Brought him into the TARDIS, but I saw that it was too late. So then I got an idea and I couldn't exactly _ask_ him if he was up for it, but– I did it anyway."

"Did what?"

"Opened the control panel," Ianto joined in. He extracted himself from Jack's arms and stepped away. He seemed skittish and slightly nervous, as if he wasn't sure how Jack would react to what he had to say. "If I had been alive, the energy would have burned me from the inside, but as it was–"

"It found a host," the Doctor finished. "The energy coming from the heart of the TARDIS latched onto his body and started searching for a consciousness and it found what it was looking for. It brought him back."

"Does that mean," Jack cleared his throat. It was hard to speak all of a sudden, and he wasn't really surprised – he hadn't spoken to anyone properly in days. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

The Doctor was looking down and fidgeting with one of the tails of his tweed jacket and Ianto responded with a small, nervous nod. "I think it does."

"But, you see," the Time Lord put in, "It's not quite the same as you. The symptoms will be the same, of course, but it's a bit more dangerous. You got it second hand and for him it was like, like flame latching onto a torch. The energy is still burning inside him."

"Meaning?" Jack could feel that he was grinning like an idiot and Ianto acknowledged it with a shier version of that wicked smile he only ever displayed in front of him.

"Meaning that he's got the energy of the Vortex inside him as a living, breathing being. Which technically makes him the only creature that could ever kill you."

"It won't get to that," Ianto said, voice solemn and still so tentative and his breath left him in a huff as Jack brought him in for a bone-crushing hug. He buried his nose in Ianto's dark curls and took a deep breath, getting lost in the familiar scent of green apples and honey.

"You're not mad at me?" Ianto's voice was amused if a bit muffled and Jack stared at him in disbelief as they pulled off from each other.

"Why on Earth would I be mad at you?"

"Jack, I'm going to live forever. It just can't end well."

"Funny," Jack whispered. Everything but Ianto seemed to have disappeared – the Doctor, the TARDIS, the entire situation they were in – and it was as if they were alone and he could say whatever he wanted to because, for the first time, they had all the time in the world. "From where I'm standing, it's the best ending I could possibly imagine."


End file.
